Selected links that are useful for each stage of the comic/graphic novel-making process.

If you're just getting started, or want quick resources, look for the before an entry. These are resources that provide a good overview, while the rest go more in depth and into technical details. See also the Tips I post in the blog.

Note: These are all outside sites and sometimes they disappear without warning (sniff!) If you get an error message please let me know and I'll clean up the listing.

Understanding Comics explains what comics are in all their magical, misunderstood potential. McCloud dwells on what makes the medium of comics distinct from all other art mediums, separating the medium itself from tools and styles. He discusses icons and symbols, which are what makes a comic intelligible, the power of the gap between panels, and other things comic makers need to be aware of . Levels of abstraction, text-image relationships, masking, closure, transitions, controlling the sense of time, color are only some of the topics explored. When I picked up this volume, I already had a solid grounding in comics theory and semiotics, but even so I was surprised, delighted, and inspired to find all these points laid out here, with each page feeling like a revelation or a rediscovery. I re- read it occasionally for pure pleasure and to refresh my memory.

Reinventing Comics is "something completely different". It's an essay in comic form about the comic industry as it stands, as it should ideally be, and as it may develop in the future. McCloud points out how comics are not yet exploring their full potential because they're still created them with a mindset tuned into other medias: moviemaking, art or writing. He acknowledges the rise of new medias that should completely revolutionize the way comics are made now they can be taken out of the limitations of ink on paper and into the "infinite canvas" of the web. The first part of the book examines 9 revolutions the comic professionals have been trying to achieve to upturn the status of comics: comics as literature, comics as art, creators' rights, industry innovation, public perception, institutional scrutiny, gender balance, minority representation and diversity of genre. The second part is dedicated to 3 more revolutions that the computer has introduced: digital production, digital delivery and digital comics. This is a very thought-provoking volume that explores the "greater area" of comics so that between it and Understanding Comics, no stone has been left unturned.

Making Comics is best enjoyed if you do not expect it to be a tutorial or a workbook, or even a reference. Here the comic format does get in the way of laying out essentials in a clear, structured way, and quickly looking up something is all but impossible. It should be read. like the first two volumes, as a graphic essay, and McCloud, as is his habit, goes into great depth and abundant illustration for every topic covered, which it what makes this book so enlightening. I can't even list all the ideas discussed, the table of contents takes up two whole pages, but among them are: the five choices (moment, frame, image, word, flow), clarity vs intensity vs persuasion, character design, facial expressions and body language, the 7 types of word/picture combination, sound effects, backgrounds, western and non-western perspective, traditional and digital tools, discovering your style, old and new markets for comics.

Drawing People is my own publication: Everything you need to know to draw the human figure, fully and clearly illustrated in full color. Chapters: - Introduction: Cultivating Your Drawing Skills - Drawing the body (comparative face and body anatomy for men and women, muscle diagrams, hands and feet, notes on balance and foreshortening) - Emotions and facial expressions (a study of a sample of 60 expressions with additional notes on posture, etc) - Flexibility (understand how and where the body bends) - Aging the face and body, detailed for men and women - Catalogue of human features (eye/hair/skin color, nose/eyebrow/eye/breast shapes, body types) - Guide to human types (detailed anatomic and facial characteristics of over 50 ethnotypes, from Ainu to Zulu, with notes on mixed types – no other such guide is in existence today)